Helen Pickett, a San Diego, California native, currently resides Brooklyn, New York. 2017 marks 12 years for Helen as a choreographer. During this time she created over 35 ballets in the U.S. and Europe, and was resident choreographer for Atlanta Ballet from 2012-2017. Critic, Manning Harris, wrote that Camino Real, Helen’s first full-length ballet, would “become a legend in the dance world.”
Her commissions for 2017 and 2018 include Tulsa Ballet, Philadelphia Ballet, a new full length for Scottish Ballet, Charlotte Ballet, and Voices of the Amazon, a new London musical dance theater production. In recent seasons she choreographed for the Chicago Lyric Opera, Dresden Ballet, Vienna State Ballet, Boston Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, among others. In addition to Helen’s contemporary ballet choreography, she has collaborated, as a choreographer and actress with installation video artists and filmmakers, including Eve Sussman, Toni Dove and Laurie Simmons. She danced with Ballet Frankfurt, director, William Forsythe for 11 years, and performed with the New York theater company Wooster Group, director, Elizabeth LeCompte, for five years. She was nominated for the Isadora Duncan Dance Award in 2013, and was won Best Choreographer of Atlanta in 2014 and 2015. She is the producer and creator of the workshops, Choreographic Essentials and Steps into Courage, the motivational creative workshop for the general public. In 2006, Dance Europe published Helen’s article, Considering Cezanne. In 2012, Emory University published her writing for the Vulnerability and the Human Condition Initiative, director Martha Fineman, that appeared on the Emory University School of Law website. Helen earned her Masters of Fine Arts in 2011 from Hollins University. In 2016, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate, for her contribution to the arts, and named Visiting Distinguished Artist from North Carolina School of the Arts, dean, Susan Jaffe. For more information please visit: www.helenpickett.com
